


incredible, indescribable, irrevocable

by kitfira



Series: helical rising [1]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Among Us (Video Game) Setting, Character Development, Corpses, Friendship, M/M, Murder, Not Beta Read, Temporary Character Death, i mean this is an among us au, no beta we die like women
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26695207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitfira/pseuds/kitfira
Summary: "Wait, I should call you Iwa-chan! That means we're friends now!"Iwaizumi stops trying to subtly remove Oikawa's grip.Friends?-This was just a game, Iwaizumi knew. Nothing was permanent, and nothing mattered.Oikawa Tooru defies all of them, and some more.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: helical rising [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953316
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	incredible, indescribable, irrevocable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [discountranboo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/discountranboo/gifts), [Capricious_Magpie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Capricious_Magpie/gifts).



> thank you to everyone that played among us w me,, and my friends who kept talking abt it on the server lmao (also i don't have ur ao3 accs sorry)
> 
> if you've played among us, i'll be adding a lot of absolutely non-canon shit (aka weird worldbuilding slash bending canon until it's like a pretzel) here. if you've never played it, as a crewmate you basically try to complete tasks in a map, and impostors can kill crewmates or cause distractions to hinder you from winning, while trying to convince crewmates that they're not an impostor. you can vote to eject someone, and if that person is the impostor, then the crew wins.
> 
> tw for blood, corpses (no gore!!) and murder; if you want to avoid them just go to the next line break!! you won't miss important plot ʕ ·ᴥʔ
> 
> song i listened to when writing this: [don't you worry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlolEYHP80c) by oh wonder

Iwaizumi remembers his first game.

Of course, not that it was anything special. He’s never had much to remember, so Iwaizumi counted it as at least something.

“You know what to do,” says Red, his mentor.

“I do,” replies Iwaizumi.

Red nods at him. "Take advantage of extended vision," they advise.

In his first game—Iwaizumi's first official one, not with computer-generated simulations—he'd been one of the two Impostors, the other one being one of his mentors. They had been there to assist him, and for Iwaizumi himself to learn from them. It was all utterly impersonal, and Iwaizumi didn't mind.

Iwaizumi and Red are right behind the boxes in Storage, hidden by the shifting shadows. Although multiple Impostors splitting up covered more base, teaming up allowed them to kill bystanders, if they were unlucky. They could vouch for each other, if it came to that; although Iwaizumi doubted it.

Still, as Yellow (another one of his mentors) had told Iwaizumi, he would most likely be facing games with only one Impostor, and even in the case of having multiple ones he had to learn how to fend for himself.

Green walks into Storage, heading towards the oil canister. When they're in range, Iwaizumi leaps out with an elbow braced, slamming them onto the ground with a crack.

Red inspects the body, then gives him a thumbs-up before opening the vent cover and sliding in. Iwaizumi counts to three inside his head, then signals a meeting.

* * *

He wins. Or, more accurately, Red and him do.

Apparently that had been enough to be deemed satisfactory—but Iwaizumi supposed that all the simulations hadn't meant nothing. At the end of the game, instead of returning to the pre-game shuttle screen, he was brought to a grey room where White let him go with a cool, "Good job, Iwaizumi-kun."

Grey creeps in at the edges of Iwaizumi's vision as gravity releases him.

When the feeling of plummeting fades along with what little nausea he has, Iwaizumi opens his eyes to find himself in a space shuttle. He's sitting on a metal mounted to the wall with nine others, and the glass walls expose black nothingness with pinpricks of stars.

It's just like the one Iwaizumi saw in those simulations.

He's got this.

* * *

Iwaizumi finds himself in a shuttle—like the ones of those simulations plus his last game. Having no desire to be approached, he gets up and strides to the end, pretending to stare out at the whirling stars outside as the metal floor thrums.

Inside his helmet, a countdown starts from built-in comms in Iwaizumi's suit. He waits.

Red letters flash across his visor. _You are the Impostor._

The words fade a moment later in a blurry of pixels, and Iwaizumi turns towards the shuttle door. They slide open with a hissing sound as steam pours from its hinges, curling into the air.

Iwaizumi strides straight forward, not sparing a glance behind him. He doesn’t wait for anyone, nor does anyone wait for him.

Iwaizumi makes his way past the cafeteria and keeps walking forward, opting to go down the right hallway leading to Shields. There isn’t anyone in Weapons, and Iwaizumi isn’t planning to kill anyone there, anyways—it was too open.

As he turns a sharp right, heading towards the front of the space station, Iwaizumi contemplates whether to turn on automatic extended view. Instead of having to look around, the visor screen takes its wide surface and sensors to automatically pan around his surroundings.

It's useful, especially when around crewmates; but sometimes the rotating bird's eye perspective makes him dizzy, and Iwaizumi had ended up crashing into a wall when trying to run away during one of his training sessions from the Impostor in that game.

He decides to leave it off for now. Walking into Navigations, Iwaizumi spies Purple standing near the very front of the room, looking down at the buttons.

He stays near the first task, watching Purple out of the corner of his eye. Was this panel used for fixing wires? Or power direction? Iwaizumi didn't remember, since the only time he'd played as crewmate were the times he had to have his reflexes trained. Because Iwaizumi was mostly taught to play Impostor, all that he knew about being a crewmate was limited to Impostor techniques.

Purple moves away from the navigation deck, heading towards the exit. Iwaizumi drops his arm immediately, whirling around with a clenched fist.

The impact tells Iwaizumi that he's met his mark, and he stares dispassionately at the crumpled body sprawled out on the deck.

Taking his time to slide out the tablet from the side of his suit, Iwaizumi spares one last glance at Purple, then alerts the crew.

* * *

Iwaizumi's fingers are stiff under thick layers of plastic and cloth, but he doesn't dig them into his thigh, or let them curl into his palms. Besides him, there are only three crewmates left—Blue, Red, and Pink.

After the last emergency meeting, Iwaizumi had offered to follow Red around as to 'look out for each other'. What they didn't know, however, was that while they were doing that annoying task with the reactor password, Iwaizumi had taken a wild guess and popped into Security through the vents, delivered a blow to Green, then headed back as if nothing had happened.

So, the three were arguing about who was the Impostor. Typical day, actually; only that when Iwaizumi practised with his mentors they battled with wits and mental strategies, not excessive shouting and threats comprised of everything that a threat was, but without any legitimate reason.

So... Blue or Pink, since Iwaizumi followed Red around. He glances at the rapidly escalating argument, then taps on Blue's profile.

* * *

Iwaizumi wins. It's to be expected.

* * *

Cyan is following him.

Not just following him, to be precise. They'd just come over and hooked their arm through his, like a pair of child best friends. And acting like it was perfectly normal, skipping along while humming a tune under their breath.

Iwaizumi's fingers twitched. He tried to yank his arm away, but to his dismay Cyan's arm tightened around his limb. They were basically clinging to his arm now, like an insistent octopus.

What the fuck.

"Why are you sticking with me," drawled Iwaizumi, walking faster. The person skipped quicker to keep up with him.

"Don't worry, I'm not the Impostor!" Cyan chirps. Bored, Iwaizumi glances at the name on their identification—Oikawa Tooru. "Anyways, I figured this is always a safe strategy! If either one of us gets killed, the other can report!"

_Easy bait, easy kill… this person really was stupid, huh?_

"Mhmm." Iwaizumi quickens his steps, not looking to see if Oikawa follows. He'll head to storage, somewhere near those crates... claims he has a quest, and then if chances were right Iwaizumi could frame another person nearby or escape through a vent... 

"I've got a quest in the navigation chamber," pipes up Oikawa suddenly, and Iwaizumi grunts in response, about to keep heading forward to find other people—but there's a hand on his right arm and Oikawa is dragging him to the front of the station, what in—

Iwaizumi stands there while Oikawa types in the passcode slowly. Judging by the curses the other person utters under their breath, Iwaizumi would bet that Oikawa could actually be... a new player?

And then Oikawa insists on tagging along everywhere. And because Iwaizumi is too busy being tagged along, and sometimes dragged insistently, the rest of the crew finish their tasks, and Iwaizumi loses.

He fucking loses. Because some newbie decides to tag along.

Anyways.

Iwaizumi chooses to return to the same party for some reason, and most of the people from the last game are there, Oikawa included. He stands up as soon as he's back in the shuttle, wanting to go over to the windows or pretend to be changing his avatar, but Oikawa appears to have gotten to the shuttle before him and promptly dashes over to Iwaizumi as soon as he starts to walk away, placing himself right in front of Iwaizumi.

"Iwaizumi!" Oikawa cheers. A thought appears to strike him as he doesn't speak for a while ( _'Isn't_ _that surprising,'_ snickers a voice inside Iwaizumi's mind), and Oikawa's grip slackens for a moment. Unfortunately, it's back as quick as it had gone, and Iwaizumi thinks that Oikawa is clinging on even tighter than before. "Wait, I should call you Iwa-chan! That means we're friends now!"

Iwaizumi stops trying to subtly remove Oikawa's grip. _Friends?_

You could change your identification anytime whenever you went into a new shuttle. You couldn't stay in touch with anyone. You couldn't trust anyone, because the game was random and it did not care.

It definitely did not consider 'friendship'.

Iwaizumi supposed that the closest to 'friendship' in this place was comrades—people on the same side as you, who had a common goal.

But Iwaizumi had always been the odd one out. And he was good at it, so it didn't matter. No attachments and no feelings. Random avatars.

Nothing was permanent, and everything was temporary. It didn't matter.

Iwaizumi blinks, and he's back to reality. The thrumming of the space shuttle is a familiar sensation at the bottom of his boots, and so is the puff of steam accompanied by hissing as the door slides open. Oikawa leads him to the left wing, passing Med Bay and Security to the lower reactor.

It feels too strange. Iwaizumi's been fast, subtle, sleek, but it he feels like he's walking through mud right now.

Something jostles next to him, and Iwaizumi turns with nerves raised to find Oikawa still clinging to his arm, tugging him forward. His head is bobbing with movement, almost skipping along as Oikawa appears to be talking to him. Mechanically, Iwaizumi's legs move to catch up.

"... suit once! That'll be so cool, don't you think, Iwa-chan?" Oikawa continues talking as they stop in front of the reactor, with him raising his voice to be heard over the rumbling sounds. "Wait, are you even paying attention? We can't win if we don't complete all the tasks... hey, do you think we can get holographic suits after a certain goal... "

Iwaizumi glances at his taskbar, half-listening to Oikawa's rambles. It wasn't like he could do anything. Like always, a bright yellow 'FAKE TASKS' glares up at him. "Electrical," he says. "And then the cafeteria,"

"You should've done the cafeteria one first!" bemoans Oikawa. "Were you distracted by my words? I can't blame you, I am quite charming~!"

"You are not, Shittykawa," retorts Iwaizumi. They pass the security room, and catch a glimpse of the orange avatar inside before continuing to head down the hallway.

Idly, Iwaizumi wonders if Oikawa ever gets suspicious.

* * *

Oikawa tries to stand up on a cafeteria table. Iwaizumi tries to stop him.

"You couldn't have picked another table?" Because no, he really couldn't have. Of course of all the perfectly wonderful tables present, Oikawa insisted on the one with the button for emergency meetings.

"Get the fuck down," repeats Iwaizumi, an edge in his voice. To his horror, it's nothing like the severe tone of his mentors, but rather like an exasperated one who was slightly amused.

He was not amused. He was very exasperated, and he was tired of this shit.

Oikawa had managed to clamber on top of the table after a few failed attempts. His head almost brushes the ceiling—if he jumped, the lights above them would break in a shower of glass. Iwaizumi opens his mouth to warn Oikawa, but closes it upon coming to the conclusion that, had he not already thought of the notion, Oikawa would surely attempt it.

With great pain, Iwaizumi shuts his mouth, and suffers with his newfound fate of being a 'friend'.

(Oikawa does end up stepping on the button. He also ends up breaking it, but there's going to be another game after this one anyways, so Iwaizumi can't find it in his mind to care.)

* * *

Iwaizumi thinks that there must be something wrong, and he blames it on the weird lag between game resets.

Because when the previous set ends, he finds himself with Oikawa. Again. Same space shuttle and same blinding turquoise color with that godforsaken plant on his head.

It's the same old sequence—Oikawa tails Iwaizumi to behind the large power supplier. Iwaizumi crouches down and busies himself with untangling the wires in the control panel as Oikawa inspects the lockers next to him.

"Iwa-chan, what do you think are inside these lockers?" asks Oikawa. He crouches down so his visor is level with the lock, and raps it with a gloved hand. "What's the point of lockers if you're just using them to stash trash? Or maybe there isn't anything inside them... "

Resisting the urge to sigh, Iwaizumi closes the junction box with a click and stands up. "You can inspect them later," he says. "If you've never had to interact with them, I don't think there's anything important in there."

"Don't be such a spoilsport, Iwa-chan... " Somehow, Iwaizumi gets the impression that Oikawa is pouting under his visor. "It might not be vital to our mission, but I bet it must be interesting!"

Oikawa skoots away from the lockers, using his hands to push himself up from the ground. He falls flat on his ass the first time after losing balance, and Iwaizumi doesn't offer a hand.

If he were to take off his visor, Iwaizumi would show Oikawa the most done expression—most likely the strongest emotion he had and would ever feel. Except for annoyance, maybe. At this point in his internal monologue, Oikawa had managed to get on his feet, and accentuates it with a loud, "Ta-da!"

Shaking his head, Iwaizumi snorts. "Let's go," he says.

Oikawa bounds to him and loops an arm through Iwaizumi's. As usual, he shoots a look at the other person, even though Oikawa can't see his expression under his visor. Iwaizumi doesn't make to try to disentangle his arm, and wonders when he'd become used to being dragged along like this.

* * *

The next game starts with two Impostors. Iwaizumi takes note of this and files it in the back of his brain; since he's one of them, Iwaizumi doesn't have to worry about being killed. And Oikawa most likely (Iwaizumi wouldn't chalk him up to miss the announcement, but he would. Maybe.) knew, and would be tagging along with him, so. He's got this covered.

Iwaizumi stores his thoughts away and lets the sound of Oikawa rambling and the tapping of their feet against metal wash over him, but still glances around for switches and vents as they head forward.

It's almost relaxing. Of course, Iwaizumi doesn't claim to have ever felt said emotion, but the absence of tight-pacedness and tension is lacking even as he remains alert.

Then they turn a corner, and Iwaizumi spots a fallen mass previously hidden in the shadows.

As Iwaizumi steps forward, he sees the color of their suit—brown. Their body is crumpled on the floor face-down, legs are bent in an odd angle. Their neck lolls sideways, cracked glass of their visor revealed to the air.

It's relatively mild for what Iwaizumi's seen—even though he's the Impostor in most games, Iwaizumi sometimes gets paired up with Impostors who act cruelly, for some twisted personal reason. Iwaizumi himself often stuns his targets by making an impact to their head, allowing them to go unconscious before dying.

On any other day, Brown could just be one of Iwaizumi's targets.

Iwaizumi turns to Oikawa, who had detached himself from Iwaizumi while he was inspecting the corpse. Unlike his usual hyperactive self, Iwaizumi finds him absolutely still, feet rooted to the ground. His arms are ramrod straight at his sides, fingers curled into fists.

"Oikawa?" Iwaizumi places a hand on his shoulder, but Oikawa doesn't react. Reaching for his tablet, Iwaizumi alerts his crewmates of the corpse, and they're whisked off to the cafeteria.

**Iwaizumi H.**

_body in electrical_

**Iwaizumi H.**

_im with cyan_

Oikawa doesn't speak throughout the meeting, so Iwaizumi takes care to vouch for him. Red's calling to skip the votes, and Yellow accuses White. Iwaizumi doesn't vote, and when he waits for the rest of his crewmates he sneaks a glance towards Oikawa.

His hands are folded in his lap, unnaturally still; for the short time that Iwaizumi has known Oikawa, he's always doing something with his hands, whether it be gesturing or fiddling with his gloves or clinging to Iwaizumi.

Iwaizumi watches as Oikawa lifts his right hand up, finger outstretched and movements slow and rigid. He lets it drop on the surface of his tablet, then slides his hand off the table and curls his gloved fingers together.

He realizes that Oikawa acting like this unnerves him. Unnerves Iwaizumi, who has—could you believe it?—become accustomed to a specific mindset of Oikawa's.

The shock of it hits him quietly, like stones dropping into water: Iwaizumi had stopped considering whether Oikawa was wearing a persona or not.

In this life, Iwaizumi knows that you couldn't trust anyone, and that even if they spoke the truth you had no surefire way of knowing who. Hell, especially when Iwaizumi was raised to be an Impostor, he's been adept at pinning the blame on innocent crewmates while making it seem to be a logical mistake.

He scrolls down the screen. A few of the crewmates still haven't voted, and appear to be engaged in a complicated discussion. Normally, Iwaizumi would've tried to analyse their reactions, but he feels bone-weary and decides to close that chatroom, opting to stare at the list of members.

Grey starts to creep in from the edge of his vision, with a signal of victory on his visor screen. The feeling of gravity leaves him, and returns a few moments later.

Iwaizumi gets up by second nature. Less than a second later, Oikawa appears in the shuttle. Iwaizumi makes his way towards him, but Oikawa makes no move to stand up. His hands grip the edge of his seat, and his head is bowed.

Green, who'd occupied the seat next to Oikawa, had already gotten up and was somewhere near the window. Iwaizumi sits down in their spot.

Oikawa doesn't appear to react, and Iwaizumi doesn't speak. They sit there in silence.

Iwaizumi's never felt anything before. Now, back in the shuttle and staring at outer space as the lack of a weight on his side feels painfully obvious, something knots at the pit of his stomach.

* * *

It's Iwaizumi's turn to drag Oikawa along. When the shuttle doors slide open with a familiar hissing sound, Oikawa gets up to walk next to Iwaizumi, but doesn't make to touch him.

Iwaizumi allows a few moments of silence for Oikawa as they head to the cafeteria. He stops in the middle of the room, and, with some hesitation, loops an arm through Oikawa's. "What tasks do you have?" he asks under his breath.

"... Cafeteria, Med Bay and Admin," replies Oikawa. His voice is quiet, even more so than Iwaizumi's usual volume. There's a subdued tone to it, as if Oikawa was too tired to say anything more than a whisper.

"Let's empty the chute first, then," Iwaizumi decides, and gently tugs at Oikawa's hand, leading him to the wall.

Oikawa stands there, unmoving. Then he reaches out, gripping at the handle so tightly that Iwaizumi sees the plastic fabric of his glove flex.

Oikawa's hand slips, and the handle jerks back up smoothly, vibrating. Iwaizumi watches as Oikawa fumbles at the handle for a while, eventually having to rely on both his hands to hold the handle down long enough. He doesn't say anything throughout the whole procedure.

It's silent.

* * *

... he isn't the Impostor.

It makes him feel…relieved? It's definitely not a feeling he's well acquainted with. Iwaizumi's wracking his brain trying to place his thoughts, but he and Oikawa are already heading to the cafeteria.

Iwaizumi continues towards the weapons control room, but stops in his tracks when he notices the lack of Oikawa and his rambles.

He turns around and sees Oikawa standing in the middle of the cafeteria, hands on his hips. When he sees Iwaizumi, Oikawa raises a hand and waves. "Yahoo, Iwa-chan!" he says. "And I thought you'd forgotten about me,"

"Dumbass," replies Iwaizumi. He approaches Oikawa. "What are you doing there? Have you got a quest in the cafeteria?"

Oikawa shakes his head and points towards the other direction. "I've got one in the Med Bay," he says. "It's going to take a while, so don't wait up for me!"

Iwaizumi vaguely wonders if Oikawa was the Impostor. _He would be a terrible one, but Oikawa could fool everyone,_ Iwaizumi thinks.

Somehow, the thought that Oikawa would be a bad Impostor makes something inside of him settle.

"Go to Security after you're finished," says Iwaizumi. Then, after a beat, "Stay safe,"

"Iwa-chaaaaaan," drags out Oikawa, and he's clinging at Iwaizumi's arm again. Iwaizumi glares at him from behind his visor, even though he knows Oikawa can't see his expression. "I changed my mind. Come with me to the Med Bay,"

"Hell no," Iwaizumi deadpans, and in response Oikawa lets out a whine that is eerily similar to that of the emergency meeting siren.

* * *

Iwaizumi pads along the corridor to the security room. He's only got a small task in the upper reactor left, his other tasks having been in the left wing.

There are no doors in the space station, save for the sliding screens controlled by Impostors. Iwaizumi doesn't see Oikawa as he enters the room, and frowns.

_Could he be hiding to scare me?_

He steps towards the glowing screens on the office desk, careful not to trip over the wires strewn on the floor. The chair bumps into Iwaizumi's abdomen as he approaches, so he moves to push it to the side—

_Oh._

Oikawa's turquoise suit is slumped over in the chair, the plastic material stained with blood. His head is dangling off the edge of the seat, and under the harsh lighting of the computer screens Iwaizumi sees a crack running from the side of Oikawa's visor—

And when Iwaizumi kneels down despite himself, something squelches under his foot. He glances down, and there's a puddle of blood, soaking into the carpet, trickling down and dripping dripping dripping dripping—

The wailing siren of an emergency meeting whisks Iwaizumi's avatar to the cafeteria, and when one of the crewmates (Iwaizumi doesn't remember the color of the suit they had worn—wasn't this supposed to be impersonal?) mentions him crouched over Oikawa's suit, Iwaizumi sees the end before it comes to meet him.

They win after all, but Iwaizumi can't help but feel like he'd lost.

* * *

The next time, Oikawa's clinging to him as always. If his grip seemed to be tighter than before, neither of them mention it.

Iwaizumi walks slower this time, his eyes flickering to vent covers in shadowed corners and control panels for Impostor sliding screens tucked right around doorframes. The words 'FAKE TASKS' blinking up at him from behind his visor seem to be mocking Iwaizumi, but he's... glad.

He looks to the left without turning his head, finding the familiar control panel for sabotaging panels—for the doorway from the cafeteria to Weapons. Iwaizumi looks away.

There is something different about the way Iwaizumi observes his environment. He tries not to dwell on it.

"...Iwa-chan, you're not listening to me, are you?" whines Oikawa from next to him. They've stopped in the middle of the hallway—the sliver of large glowing light tubes reveal that they're near the head of the ship.

"... Sorry," Iwaizumi says.

"Eh?!" Oikawa clutches his arm tighter. "Are you Iwa-chan? Are you someone who changed their name to Iwaizumi?" And he pauses at this point, with Iwaizumi getting a very bad feeling, like the feeling one gets when a companion is about to crack a dad joke—"Maybe you're an Impostor!"

"I can't be my own Impostor," jabs back Iwaizumi. He tenses slightly as the words leave his mouth, hoping that Oikawa would overlook it, and that he wouldn't read too much—

"Mmhmm," Oikawa replies. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to read too much on it, and continues skipping forward with Iwaizumi's arm in tow.

It's when they're trooping along the hallway to Electrical that Iwaizumi realizes, belatedly, that the weight of Oikawa's arm... seems more familiar than not.

* * *

This 'friendship' thing is weird. Ever since Oikawa made that declaration, the universe plus all the random wiggly bits that decide luck have not been Iwaizumi's side.

Iwaizumi resigns himself to the fact that he would be stuck with Oikawa forever. Even if he got into another game without Oikawa, the following one would contain him. Iwaizumi would bet his left glove for that statement.

Which brings Iwaizumi to think. As a disclaimer, when Iwaizumi thinks, it's usually about Impostor techniques. Winning games. But recently, he's been thinking of Oikawa.

He supposes that spending time together is, if Iwaizumi grudgingly admits, a partly ingrained habit instead of Oikawa clinging to him and Iwaizumi being unable to free himself. It's voluntary.

Of course, Oikawa does still cling to him more often than not, and that's only the times Oikawa needs to detach himself to do tasks, or when they first reset after a game.

It's strange. That's the only conclusion Iwaizumi can think of, but what's even stranger is that it's almost not strange at all now. In fact, his new definition of strange is an Oikawa-less game.

To sum it up, maybe: Oikawa, in Iwaizumi's existing space, is strange compared to what Iwaizumi's been used to, but he actually seems to be a normal part of Iwaizumi's life now.

"Iwa-chan!"

Iwaizumi sighs.

* * *

It's a new development.

The game started out just like any other. People he doesn't know spamming the shuttle chatroom, Oikawa next to him talking a million miles an hour, Iwaizumi actually listening (yet another new development in his life that involves Oikawa), a random meteor outside flying way too close to the shuttle windows and missing by a millionth of a millimeter.

So, yeah. Normal things. Or at least his new normal.

At some point after Oikawa's finished his tasks, and they're both sitting at the cafeteria, nothing's happened.

Well, since Iwaizumi was the Impostor, nothing happened in the terms of the game. But Oikawa slides his tablet over to Iwaizumi (featuring Does Oikawa Know I Am The Impostor, trial run by Iwaizumi.exe for the nth time), telling him to "look at the screen, Iwa-chan!! Are you sleeping? You're such an old man! Iwa-chan look at the screen I—"

Iwaizumi does look at the screen, after shoving Oikawa. The tasks bar is green, full, complete. Hell, it was marked as complete, too.

And then the other crewmates come over, and Oikawa chats enthusiastically with White as all of them squabble over the mystery of completed tasks plus the absence of a reset.

At one point, the conversation dulls down. Oikawa starts humming and tapping his fingers on the tabletop. A few of them wander off to Security to try rewire the computers and play pixel games on them, Green downright falls asleep on the cafeteria floor in front of them, and Lime and Blue come in through the right doorway with papers and pencils.

Because oh, for the sake of whatever fucking thing this is, they're going to be hear quite a while. And as impressive Oikawa's seemingly neverending fount of knowledge is, Iwaizumi would really like something to do.

"I'm going to talk to them," says Iwaizumi abruptly, getting up.

Oikawa squeaks a little in surprise, but quickly regains composure and levels finger guns at Iwaizumi with his head cocked. "Get em, Iwa-chan!"

Iwaizumi stops in his tracks and turns around, conveying an expression of absolute deadpan through his visor.

He continues walking, coming to a stop at their table. Upon his arrival, Lime jumps a little, covering their sketch with their arm. Blue merely looks up, pausing their process of drawing a field. "Can I have some of your papers?" Iwaizumi asks. "And, uhm. A pencil. Too?"

"Okay!" says Lime quickly. "Oh, and we got these from the admin room!"

"Feel free to," Blue adds calmly.

"Thanks," Iwaizumi says, then picks up two sheets of paper and a pencil.

Iwaizumi finds Oikawa pillowing his head on crossed arms on the cafeteria table. As he nears, Oikawa starts to let out obnoxiously loud (and fake) snoring sounds, his shoulders exaggeratedly rising and falling with each snore.

"Oi." Iwaizumi pokes Oikawa in the arm. "You snore when you sleep."

"I do _not_ , Iwa-chan!" Oikawa's head shoots up, nearly hitting Iwaizumi in the face. "I was so bored waiting for you, that I fell asleep. And may I have you know that I am a picture of perfect innocence! Especially when I sleep!"

"Okay." Putting a sheet of paper to the side, Iwaizumi picks up the pencil, starting to sketch a faint structure base.

"Iwa-chan—" Oikawa starts. He pauses, noticing Iwaizumi's movements. "Wait! What are you drawing? Can I draw with you?" He makes to grab Iwaizumi's pencil, who yanks it away.

"You can get one from Lime and Blue or at Administrative," says Iwaizumi. He glares distrustfully at Oikawa's hands, but after a few seconds decides to resume drawing. This time, Oikawa doesn't make to disturb him, but observes his drawing with his head propped up on one arm.

At this point, Iwaizumi's finished drawing a balanced cube with straight sides, and the grids on their different faces. Squinting, he twirls the pencil around and uses the eraser on the end to rub at the grids.

"Draw me, Iwa-chan!"

Oikawa is fiddling at the neck of his suit before Iwaizumi can say anything, and with a few annoyed sounds, pops the helmet straight off his head.

A mop of fluffy brown hair falls out. Iwaizumi stares.

Oikawa reaches up to adjust his hair. He manages to get it out of his eyes, which are apparently the same color as his hair. Oikawa tries to sweep the ends to his ears, but it remains tangled and. Well.

Fluffy.

Iwaizumi feels a prickling at the base of his neck, and turns around to find everyone staring at them. The cafeteria is dead quiet, with Lime and Blue frozen in their motions. Red, entering from the left hallway, drops something with a clatter.

In the silence, Iwaizumi hears Lime let out a squeak.

Eager to dispel the tension, Iwaizumi sighs loudly, picking up his pencil. "Fine, I'll draw you."

"Hooray!"

"You're not allowed to see until I'm done yet," adds Iwaizumi. Oikawa pouts, but sits back, opting to prop his chin up with an arm.

Halfway through, Iwaizumi contemplates changing the freckles on Oikawa's cheekbones to look like scattered stars, but decides against it and the prospect of getting teased. But the aesthetic. And.

Fuck you. Iwaizumi would make Oikawa pretty if he wanted to. Not that he wasn't— _wait_ —

He forcefully shuts down that thought and locks it away in the back of his mind, and continues sketching.

After a fair amount of minutes with an eerily quiet Oikawa and trying to make the best out of the miniscule eraser at the end of the pencil, Iwaizumi looks down at the sketch and thinks that it looks, maybe, not terrible.

"I'm done," Iwaizumi says, and slides the sketch over to Oikawa.

It's a side profile of Oikawa's face, ending at his shoulders. Oikawa's hair is more graceful than messy, and drawn to look like clouds. Some of them spill down the sides of Oikawa's face and curl into the air in strands. Iwaizumi had drawn Oikawa's freckles to look like stars, just because; and Iwaizumi had spent a good five minutes rubbing and sketching furiously at the cheekbones, trying to decide if he should imitate the Milky Way or Oikawa's own freckles before realizing that he had been staring at Oikawa's face for a whole minute without drawing anything.

To complete the aesthetic, Iwaizumi used the sun and the moon to substitute the irises in Oikawa's eyes. A halo comprised of planets and their rotatory courses floats on top of Oikawa's head of clouds, and from his shoulders Iwaizumi had drawn swirling tendrils of darkness which gathered at the bottom.

"Iwa-chan—" Oikawa leans close to the sketch, eyes wide and staring. "IWA-CHAN! I LOVE IT!"

Unbidden, Iwaizumi lets out a breath he didn't even know he had been holding. "Oh," he says lamely.

"The clouds! And the little freckles, and you noticed them! And it was so spacey, I love it, I love you, I love—"

Iwaizumi freezes, then relaxes. Stores it away into the tiny box (complete with a tiny lock) in his mind that was reserved for Oikawa.

In the middle of his gushing, Oikawa suddenly pauses his hand movements, swaying in the air. He appears to think for a few moments, eyebrows creased, then reaches down to unzip his suit.

"What the fuck," says Iwaizumi, a hysterical-sounding edge in his voice. He isn't hysterical. He's perfectly calm. That isn't a sensible warning to Oikawa, apparently, because he just continues. Iwaizumi wonders if his sketch had made Oikawa's brain come up with weirder ideas than usual.

Out of virtue, Iwaizumi plants his head face down on the table with a thunk. "Shittykawa, if you're going to strip, please do it elsewhere,"

Oikawa sticks his tongue out at Iwaizumi. "Silly Iwa-chan," he says. "We have bodysuits under them!"

"They're like underclothing." Iwaizumi lifts his head and levels a deadpan stare at Oikawa. "What motivated you to take your fucking clothes off in the middle of a space station, anyways?"

The answer surprises him. But then again, everything that is Oikawa does. "I wanted to keep your drawing here!" Lifting one side of his opened suit to the side, Oikawa points down at the folded paper in one of his pockets and winks. "Close to my heart. Just like you, Iwa-chan~!"

"Sh—shut up," manages Iwaizumi. His face feels hot, and Iwaizumi thanks all the known forces that he's wearing a helmet.

Really.

* * *

This situation continues for a long time, so the crew is just resigned to living in the station. Indefinitely.

Orange and Lime nap on the couch in the weapons control room, taking turns with Yellow and Red, who occupy the carpet on shifts. Green actually sleeps near the reactors, claiming that the rumbling sounds help them fall asleep. White sleeps in the security room, curled up under the desk and undisturbed by the glaring illumination from the computer screens.

Even though the Med Bay has actual beds, few of the crewmates actually want to sleep there because of the blinding white lights that do not have an off switch and only go out during electrical sabotages. Purple and Blue are the only two sleeping there.

Personally, Iwaizumi thinks he would rather join Green than lie under those lights. Even at the risk of malfunctioning reactors, constant rumbling, smell of engine oil and whatnot.

Iwaizumi and Oikawa sleep in the administrative office, with Iwaizumi's insistence that it's one of the darkest rooms (save for Security, but there is no way he's falling asleep in that room), and that it had cushioned chairs, albeit not as comfortable as the couch in Weapons.

Still, it's pretty nice, and Iwaizumi gets used to waking up and not mistaking himself for having started another game. Since they're in space, the crew just compromises rest shifts, and all of them gather in the cafeteria to eat inbetween them.

They occasionally (read: way too much) do patrols around the station when they have nothing to do. Without the time limit of a game, Oikawa often drags Iwaizumi to the front of the station to stare at the space view.

Iwaizumi absolutely does not go along with it, if only to see the awe-filled look on Oikawa's face every time.

He does not.

... maybe he does.

* * *

Something flashes—something white and blinding, but Iwaizumi didn't hear the telltale beeping of a reactor malfunctioning, and he was the Impostor, and there was nothing nothing nothing—

* * *

There's a telltale rattle of a vent cover behind him, and Iwaizumi turns.

An orange avatar pokes out—their name starts with a H, glimpses Iwaizumi, and then there's something in their hand and Iwaizumi's vision spins and warps, like when he's tossed into a new game except instead of whiteness it was darkening—

Iwaizumi finds himself able to open his eyes. He does that, and promptly regrets it.

Glaring Med Bay lights stare down at him, piercing through the thick glass of his visor. Iwaizumi squeezes his eyes shut, and waits for the spots behind his eyelids to fade away and for his dizziness to cease.

When Iwaizumi's stable enough, he gets up and looks around. The interior of the room he's in appears to be like any other Med Bay, except that Iwaizumi has never woken up in a Med Bay.

Well, it was also his first time getting caught by an Impostor.

He walks over to the scanner and starts it, moving to stand on the platform. Iwaizumi waits for the beeping sound to stop, then steps off to look at his results.

He's… injured? Which means Iwaizumi cannot do tasks or communicate with his crewmates, but will recover to normal condition after some time.

Iwaizumi is also banned from leaving the Med Bay.

Huffing out a sigh, Iwaizumi walks over to the samples machine, staring at his reflection in its glass surface. To his surprise, his visor appears to be… cracked?

Iwaizumi lifts up a gloved hand and touches the front of his visor, running his fingers down the surface. The fabric catches on the crack, glass jutted out from the breaking impact.

He lets the hand fall, checking the progress bar. More than half of the tasks had already been completed, but Iwaizumi knows that if he doesn't recover to do his tasks before the Impostor kills all of his crewmates, they would never manage to win.

Iwaizumi detaches his tablet from his belt upon hearing a ping—an emergency meeting. Since this new development places him neither alive nor dead, Iwaizumi looks down at the messages on the screen.

At least Oikawa's not dead.

Halfway through the conversation, Orange leaves the game, and they're given an automatic win. Iwaizumi closes his eyes as the familiar grey creeps in from the edge of his vision.

He ends up back in the shuttle, as usual. Feeling faintly relieved, Iwaizumi gets to his feet gingerly and stands there awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Iwaizumi looks around him—a lot of his crewmates are still in their seats.

Down the row, Iwaizumi sees Oikawa's turquoise avatar get up and walk towards him. He heads a little to the side, waiting for Oikawa.

He doesn't cling to Iwaizumi's side like he usually does. Doesn't ramble about planets and "how exciting, Iwa-chan!" and various things.

"Shittykawa," rolls off Iwaizumi's tongue.

Oikawa shifts from next to him. From the lack of distance, Iwaizumi can feel Oikawa's tenseness. He waits for the other person to say something.

"I THOUGHT YOU DIED!" bursts out of Oikawa's mouth.

"Uhm," offers Iwaizumi.

Oikawa lets out a wail, then proceeds to throw his entire weight towards Iwaizumi's abdomen. It's surprise and impact that causes Iwaizumi to wobble, almost sending the both of them tumbling to the ground. He finds his balance at the last second.

Iwaizumi wouldn't be surprised if there were actual tears in Oikawa's eyes. "Don't sweat it, Crappykawa," he whacks Oikawa's arm. "I'm perfectly fine—there wasn't a body, was there?"

"I didn't see you at the meeting! Who cares if no one found your corpse! You might have just been killed in a shady area!"

Privately, Iwaizumi admits the merit of this logic, but there's no way in hell he would speak it out loud. "I'll stick with you next time," he promises instead.

"I'll hold you to that, Iwa-chan," Oikawa replies.

The shuttle doors slide open.

* * *

A lot of things happen.

Firstly, Iwaizumi is the Impostor, which brings much more relief than usual. It means that he has control over who dies and who doesn't, and given the recent turn of events Iwaizumi is determined not to let shit go down. Secondly, Blue calls for an emergency meeting as soon as they get into the cafeteria, which is sensible of her (Iwaizumi learns that Blue's name is Shimizu Kiyoko)—Iwaizumi would probably have done it if he had thought of the idea.

Thirdly, Orange (the same Orange as last game, who had been the Impostor and was called Hinata Shouyou) was a fucking child.

Iwaizumi doesn't exactly remember the age he had started training, but he was certain that it was not as young as Hinata's. And Hinata was, frankly, the last person you would expect to find on a space shuttle indulging in such activities.

Oh, and Shimizu has them all remove their helmets. For 'facial recognition', or something like that.

She lets them get beverages before she officially starts the meeting, and it turns out that there's a door entering the kitchen inside the cafeteria ("Where would the food even come from, Crappykawa?" "I don't know! Maybe there are machines, like in factories! Anything is possible, Iwa-chan!"), but it's locked, and then five minutes are spent searching for the key in Administrative.

Iwaizumi grudgingly admits that it's worth it—the drinks gave everyone something to be occupied with, instead of lobbying questions at Shimizu with the speed of a meteor destroyer.

She raps her knuckles on the surface of the table. "Listen up," Shimizu says. "We're going to lay our facts out first, then go down from there. If there are incorrect ones or deviations, you can speak up. Got it?"

They murmur assent. Iwaizumi glances at Oikawa, who is sipping a mug of hot cocoa while glaring at Orange with slitted eyes.

"Okay, one of the weird things we've experienced is the late reset." Shimizu pulls out a stack of papers and a pencil—she'd probably gotten them from when the crew were scrambling around for the cafeteria key. "We don't know if there's a specific trigger, or if it's time specific, or ways to prevent or catalyse it yet."

She pauses, letting it sink in.

"Also, we have to consider the identity of the Impostor," continues Shimizu, folding her fingers together. "I wouldn't like anymore to be ejected, especially since we're going to be a team, but it's going to be a while before we can build up enough trust,"

"I'm the Impostor," Iwaizumi cuts in. "And. Well. I've been Impostor for most of the games,"

The sound of hushed whispers and clinking cups against the table stop. The air feels cold against Iwaizumi's exposed face, but he doesn't react. "I haven't killed anyone, or even tried to sabotage," he says. "I'm in this with all of you, too. Just because I have the power to do it doesn't mean I have to."

Shimizu tilts her head. Her face is neutral, and although Iwaizumi can't detect any hostility she's unlikely to believe him without convincing. "Is anyone willing to vouch for you?"

At this, Iwaizumi tenses.

_Oh. Oikawa..._

He doesn't speak, and Iwaizumi doesn't call him out for it. He thinks about how Oikawa might feel, to find out about such a thing because of what was happening. Iwaizumi forcefully pushes his swirling thoughts to the back of his mind and squashes the feeling in his stomach, trying to appear unruffled.

Opposite him, Green raises a hand and waves it in the air. Shimizu nods, motioning for them to speak.

"He's a good pal," pipes up Tendou Satori. Under the helmet, he's got spiky red hair and wide eyes. Iwaizumi vaguely recognizes him, having played in the same party for quite a while, but the two have never interacted. "Iwaizumi-kun's never really did anything towards us; I was wondering how we always won... " He accentuates this with a shrug, taking a slurp out of his mug.

"Oh!" To his immense surprise—and Oikawa's too, because Iwaizumi can feel his body jerk next to him, Hinata raises a hand in the air. "Last game! It wasn't his fault! I was the Impostor! So! He has a perfect record!"

"He's fine," adds Kuroo Tetsuroo (Red, which is ironic considering the meaning of his name, but Iwaizumi supposed he couldn't get a black suit even if he wanted to, because Iwaizumi already had it). "I don't know anything much about him. But, yeah, it's been peaceful lately, and if Iwaizumi's really the Impostor, it's probably thanks to him."

Shimizu eyes him with a critical eye. After a few moments, her expression softens by a smidge. "Alright," she says. "It would be counterproductive for you to have plotted this all out only to betray us at the last second."

Yachi raises her hand, a determined look on her face. "Shimizu-san!" she says. "This station, uhm... " She trails off. "It has rooms, right? For tasks!"

"Yes," replies Shimizu.

"So, I was thinking—" At this point, Yachi pauses to inhale. "What if there were more floors? More areas?" She takes a sip from her mug, fumbling and nearly spilling it onto the table. "The cafeteria kitchen existed, but we didn't have direct access since there aren't any tasks there. But we could access it, if we wanted to! And, well, maybe. There are other places on this station that could help us, but maybe we haven't discovered them yet!"

Shimizu doesn't react at first, looking down at the notes she had been scribbling as Yachi talked about her guess. Standing up, Shimizu looks directly into Iwaizumi's eyes. "We're going to the vents first," she decides. "It's time to get going."

Oikawa doesn't even look at Iwaizumi throughout it all.

* * *

Crawling into vents is something Iwaizumi used to do a lot. Crawling into vents surrounded by crewmates watching him intently, one of which has a clipboard and is staring down at him with an appraising look, is not.

Iwaizumi looks up, trying to catch Oikawa's eye, but the cafeteria lights glare down at him without the darkened glass of his visor.

At least it isn't in Med Bay. Thank goodness there were no vents in Med Bay.

Iwaizumi shuffles in, looking below until he can start to see shadows congulate. Slowly letting go of the handholdings on the sides of the chute, Iwaizumi's feet hit the bottom with a thump.

"Where am I supposed to go?" calls Iwaizumi, hands cupped around his mouth.

"Right for Navigation, Down for Oxygen," pipes up Akaashi (Purple).

Iwaizumi looks down. Blinks. "There's a third vent leading ahead," he says.

A squabbling noise drifts down. Shimizu's voice cuts through them. "I'll go check the cafeteria," she decides. "Sugawara, come with me."

Iwaizumi stands there awkwardly, waiting. Fortunately, Shimizu and Sugawara are quick to return, and Iwaizumi is saved from wondering if water leakages exist in the vents.

"There isn't one," Shimizu calls, crouched at the mouth of the vent. She pauses, considering. "Can we join you down there? Or—" She cuts off. "Why can only Impostors access vents?"

Iwaizumi looks down his fingers in the dim light for a few moments. The blinking spot of yellow attached to a metal band on the wrist of his suit catches his eye. "Do you have a command that allows you to access vents? Check the wrist of your suit,"

"We have one that allows deactivation of sabotaging panels," Kenma (whose name is actually Kozume Kenma, but insists on being called Kenma) supplies.

Shimizu comes to a decision and allows the entire crew to follow Iwaizumi down the vents, including herself. They trudge forward, Iwaizumi keeping an eye on the yellow light.

It turns green.

"I think we're here," Iwaizumi says. He tilts his head up, and sure enough, there's an outline of a vent cover, grids and all. "You can follow me up the handles, but I'll have to be the one to get the cover open,"

Iwaizumi clambers up to the top, and presses at a metal button at the edge of the vent cover. It loosens with a clang, and Iwaizumi pushes it to the side and climbs up, stepping into the space above.

It's unfamiliar.

It's an open space, with red metal benches lining three walls. The outside opens up into a wide corridor that Iwaizumi spies a door at the end of, and as he walks closer, he finds out that the floor of the corridor is made out of glass that peers into a multitude of clouds below.

"I'll go with Sugawara and Tendou," Shimizu says, having pulled out her tablet and staring down intently at a map of the place. She starts to instruct them into groups. "Hinata and Yachi, and... wait, you should do Med Bay and Reactor, since they're close to each other... Oikawa and Iwaizumi, just turn left at the V-shaped corridor, and you can go to the cafeteria; check out the office if you have time, it's near that place... "

Iwaizumi wonders if he should approach Oikawa, and if the other person would try to run away, but to his relief Oikawa walks over to him on his own and hooks an arm through Iwaizumi's.

"Hi, Iwa-chan," mumbles Oikawa, looking ahead.

Iwaizumi raises an eyebrow. "Hi to you too, Shittykawa,"

There's almost a sparkle in OIkawa's eye—but it fades quickly, and so does the quirk at the corner of his mouth. Oikawa slides his tablet out from the side of his suit, refusing to look at Iwaizumi as he pulls up a map. "Let's go."

* * *

"I'm sorry," says Iwaizumi as they're walking down the corridor.

Oikawa meets his eyes for the fraction of a second, but turns away. "Whatever for?"

Iwaizumi knows well enough to recognize it as forced casualness. "The Impostor thing," he says. "I think I should've told you sooner. I didn't realize that, and hid it from you for a long time."

With their proximity, Iwaizumi feels Oikawa exhale. "It's not that," he replies. They continue walking for a while, Iwaizumi waiting for Oikawa. He speaks up. "I don't know, actually. Obviously, it changes our friendship. But it's not like I can be mad or anything at you, can I? There's no excuse for me to be." Oikawa lets out a bitter laugh.

Iwaizumi bites his lip, thinking. "You can be mad, or anything else," he says slowly. "You deserve to be. You can be. And if you want to tell me, you can. You're affected by this too, and I'm sorry. I understand if you don't want to be friends anymore... "

As he trails off, Iwaizumi realizes how pathetic he sounded. "Not if you don't want to! Take your time."

Oikawa is silent, and there's only the sound of their feet against the glass. His face is turned away, so Iwaizumi can't see his expression. "Why didn't you tell me?" he says at last.

"I don't know how to," Iwaizumi says honestly. To his surprise, it's easy to admit; and slips out of his mouth like water. "I thought about it, but I never planned enough on how and when to. I had thought about telling you one day, but now I realize that I should've told you sooner, and considered how not telling you would be worse than letting it ruin our friendship. I realize that I was selfish on that choice, and should've thought about how I had hidden things from you."

At this, Iwaizumi breathes in. "Sorry, Oikawa."

They've stopped right outside the office. Oikawa looks up, and Iwaizumi sees that his eyes are red.

"Iwa-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"I forgive you." Oikawa averts his gaze, rubbing at his nose. He looks up then, to meet Iwaizumi's eyes. "You really should've told me earlier. Well, now that I know... outside of that, you're still a good friend. And I get that you're sorry… you won't do it again, right?"

"I won't," replies Iwaizumi. "And. I'm really sorry. Again."

The corners of Oikawa's lips quirk up, only slightly—but it's the best thing Iwaizumi's seen in awhile.

"I know."

* * *

Oikawa is sleeping, the sound of his breathing filling the room. Occasionally, a rumble or hiss sounds from underneath—meteors being destroyed, pipes running to the reactor thrumming with energy.

Iwaizumi stares up at the ceiling, and thinks about all the things he does not say.

* * *

"Iwa-chan—"

There's a clanging sound, then a yelp—presumably from Oikawa, and then a loud thump.

"What the fuck," intones Iwaizumi. He turns around to see no one, and falls into Panic Mode for one second, before walking to the open venthole and crouching down to peer into it. "Shittykawa?"

"Oops!" Iwaizumi shrinks back a little, as to prevent obscuring light from pouring into the narrow space. He watches, unimpressed, as Oikawa punctuates his previous statement with a thumbs up, grin visible even with the distance between them.

"It's pretty cool down here without all the lights," continues Oikawa. Iwaizumi retracts his hand. "Hey, Iwa-chan, we should have a sleepover in the vents sometime! I bet the acoustics are good... "

"What the fuck," Iwaizumi repeats.

* * *

There's another floor. Another area. It's also thankfully the last, because Iwaizumi made sure to check all the vent passageways to make sure.

His arms are sore from climbing.

The final area opens up onto solid ground, but there are barriers. Different rooms exist in small buildings, with a pit of lava at the far left of the area.

"My tablet says that this is Temperature Alignment," squints Oikawa. He stares down at the screen for a few seconds, then looks up. "What even is this used for,"

"Beats me." Iwaizumi walks a little closer to the pit of lava, stopping a distance away from the edge. He holds his hands out. "At least it's warm,"

There's a scuffling sound as Oikawa approaches and crouches down next to him. "That's one thing good for it, I guess." Shivering, he exhales in a puff of white.

Iwaizumi turns to look at Oikawa, frowning. "You should've worn your helmet," he says. "Body heat's better conserved when you're wrapped from head to toe,"

"It's snowing, of course I'm cold." Oikawa gives him a smile, but his fingers remain curled up in his lap. "And my face is a blessing! You shouldn't hide that from the world, Iwa-chan!"

"Not at the sake of your health," Iwaizumi says. He gets up, chancing a glance behind him to make sure Oikawa is following. "Come on. The Office isn't far—we can warm up there."

He misses the wide-eyed look Oikawa sends him.

* * *

Everyone regroups at the entrance, and Shimizu confirms that yes, all the tasks have been finished. She tells Iwaizumi to leave all the vents open, so the crew can access them anytime without having to bother him.

Even though there are now two more areas, everyone unanimously decides to return to the main station. But before they do, Shimizu asks them to fetch supplies—extra pens and paper from the office, spare wires from Security, and other things they wanted to take back.

Iwaizumi leads them back through the maze of vents, breathing a sigh of relief when he lifts his head out of darkness and sees the cafeteria.

Everything is a whirl after that. Shimizu agrees to put off plans for the future for now, and joins the excitement of choosing a room for herself and refurnishing it.

Iwaizumi steps to the side, absentmindedly twirling a pencil in his hands. He'd found it in the office, the body was dark blue with white dots instead of a standard yellow.

"Iwa-chan!"

Oikawa bounds up to him, hair ruffled. He doesn't seem to notice or mind. "Hey, are we going to room together? I want to put little plants on the shelfs—you know, the greenhouse at the second area was so cool! Iwa-chan, do you think you'll add things in your room? Maybe you could put up your sketches... "

"Maybe." Iwaizumi finds himself smiling, just a little. "We should clean it first, though, before adding any more things. Which room are you choosing?"

"Oxygen, I think... " Oikawa turns towards the commotion, where Shimizu is holding a clipboard. She's got a lopsided party hat shoved on her head, and contrary to her usual serious self Iwaizumi watches as she laughs at something Hinata says. "Wait here, Iwa-chan! I'll go tell Shimizu!"

He comes back a few minutes later with a party hat on his head. Oikawa's got one in his hand, too, and before Iwaizumi can have the time to think Oikawa's rushing at him with an, "Iwa-chan!"

The impact sends both of them toppling to the ground, Oikawa on top of Iwaizumi. He ties the string under his chin, then scoots back, allowing Iwaizumi to get up. Despite himself, Iwaizumi offers a hand to help Oikawa up.

Resigning himself to the countless shenanigans Oikawa would pull with him, Iwaizumi changes the topic. "Are you going to paint the walls?"

"I haven't thought about that yet!" Oikawa gets a thinking look on his face. "Can we paint it glow-in-the-dark? I think that there's a lab, we could get the chemicals from there... it'll be so cool! Iwa-chan, why do you have that look on your face? You'll get wrinkles if you frown so much—"

"I am not sleeping in a glowing room," states Iwaizumi firmly, and that was that.

* * *

After everyone finished setting up their rooms, apparently the crew _still_ has energy for a party—as if the celebration hadn't meant anything.

Iwaizumi sits at one of the cafeteria tables, sketching, while next to him Sugawara and Tendou attempt to draw a poster for their room made of several regular-size papers taped together. Oikawa had gone off to have a "dance-off" with Akaashi. A tabletop one.

"Iwaizumi-san, do you think we should add the Milky Way or the moon for the backdrop?" Sugawara's poring over a pencil draft they made on a sheet of paper (sized and shrunk, thank goodness, because Iwaizumi doesn't think we can deal with any more disasters involving flex tape and kitchen knives). "Tendou, I forgot. Do we have pink paint or not—"

He's cut off by Tendou running the bristles of a dry paintbrush over Sugawara's hair. "You lost that dare! You still haven't dyed your hair," enunciates Tendou.

"You also lost the previous dare, so that makes us even." Sugawara reaches over his sketch to poke at a spike in Tendou's hair. "Unless you want to do it...?"

"Maybe I will," retorts Tendou, and before Sugawara has time to reply, both of them are out of their seats in a flash, racing down a hallway.

In the distance, Iwaizumi hears a crash. He winces, but doesn't bother to go investigate.

Tucking his pencil and eraser into his pockets, lwaizumi looks up to scan the cafeteria for Oikawa, but fails to. He gets up, walking towards the right hallway leading to Navigation and Shields.

"Why am I not surprised," is what Iwaizumi says when he finds Oikawa at the station deck.

"Iwa-chan!" Oikawa spins around in the chair he's occupying, though making no move to approach him. A muted glow from outside halos his brown hair—Iwaizumi resists reaching out to tousle it.

The last time that had happened, Oikawa had tackled him to the floor, and while the two were wrestling Iwaizumi fell through the vent and ended up in front of a terrified Yachi.

So. No touching Oikawa's hair.

"You could have killed me," Oikawa muses, and his eyelashes flutter shut. "But you didn't,"

There is something ethereal about the whole scene, thinks Iwaizumi. If it had been sometime ago, back in the past, that Oikawa had confronted him about this, he would've killed him and promptly jumped ship without any remorse.

It's a testament to how many things have changed. If Iwaizumi's being honest, things have been changing constantly since Oikawa clung to him—Iwaizumi being tossed into internal conflict, triggering resets, Hinata accidentally unlocking new Impostor abilities and now—this.

Oikawa has been with Iwaizumi every step of the way, and—

—and Iwaizumi used to have a constant, too. He's gotten a sort of a new one, here, one that was the complete opposite of his old constant.

He doesn't mind it much.

"Iwaizumi-kun?"

When Iwaizumi snaps out of his daze with a snappy retort on his lips, he finds Oikawa looking at him. And then he meets Oikawa's eyes directly, and Iwaizumi suppresses the urge to run back to Admin to fetch his helmet, put it on and let it stay in. Forever.

He's never been good at feelings.

"That sounds weird." Iwaizumi snorts lightly, moving to lean on the back of the empty chair not occupied by Oikawa.

Oikawa laughs. "Okay, Iwa-chan," he replies.

The two of them stare at space from the navigation screen, watching pinpricks of stars fade in and out.

The new constant. It's so different, and yet it seems natural in a way that feeling numb had never been. Maybe it was because of Oikawa, that Iwaizumi's constant now had another person. Someone to stay, whether if they would inevitably be tossed into a new game, or the rest of their lives on this station.

And maybe beyond, too. Somewhere he didn't know yet.

"Will you stay?" blurts out Iwaizumi.

Oikawa's eyes widen. "I—" He gets up jerkily, pushing his chair back as he does, and the two of them are standing chest to chest. "Are you proposing to me?"

Maybe it's the light in Oikawa's eyes, or the proximity that allows Iwaizumi to feel Oikawa's heartbeat through both of their suits, or perhaps—

Apparently for whatever reason, Iwaizumi still has a lot of talking to do. "I don't know how much time we've got left," he says. "A lot of things have changed, and maybe they'll keep changing. Maybe they won't. And you've been here for so long it's strange, actually—that it seems like you've changed me."

He takes a deep breath. "You make my world better. With all the squiggly bits and dark-ass secrets. And I never had anyone to stay, but you did. I think I'll like to stay for you. With you."

There's silence.

Iwaizumi's gloved fingers are clenched tight, and he's about to say something—apologise?

Oikawa opens his mouth. "Iwa-chan," he begins.

Iwaizumi waits.

"I'll stay with you!" Oikawa screeches. "I can't believe you said that to me," he adds, but the tense silence is gone and Oikawa stretches his fingers in front of him like starfish.

Iwaizumi's gaze flickers to the scattered stars outside for a moment, before turning back to look at Oikawa. "I meant it in the way that I love you," he says, impossibly softly.

Oikawa's eyes widen—and so close to him, Iwaizumi can see the tiny flecks in his eyes.

He thinks they look rather like Saturn, from the few high-definition pictures Iwaizumi had seen.

"Oh," Oikawa whispers.

They lean in at the same time, and Iwaizumi awkwardly jerks his face to the left in the last second to avoid bumping into Oikawa's nose. His lips are soft; and Oikawa's gloved hands come to rest on either side of his shoulders.

Iwaizumi can't picture what's in the future—much like the vastness of space, with all of its swirling voids and twinkling stars and meteors shooting by; and the game itself is another variable on its own.

It's safe to say that Iwaizumi doesn't know what will happen in the future.

Yet, holding Oikawa's face in his hands, their silhouettes cast against the stars—irrevocably, Iwaizumi thinks that it's as close as can be.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!!!!!!!!
> 
> crewmate colors (only near the end,, the characters in the beginning are random ocs)  
> red - kuroo  
> orange - hinata  
> yellow - kenma  
> green - tendou  
> lime - yachi  
> cyan/ turquoise - oikawa  
> blue - kiyoko  
> purple - akaashi  
> white - sugawara  
> black - iwaizumi
> 
> edit (6/10/20): this is a series now!!
> 
> drop by at my [tumblr](https://kitfira.tumblr.com/) if you want to; my ask box is open!!


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